


The Price of Change

by telcontar



Category: Norse Mythology
Genre: Gen, Implied M/M, Sexswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 12:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telcontar/pseuds/telcontar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two old friends - if you can call them that - have a very tense meeting in a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of Change

**Author's Note:**

> A snapshot of a longer AU, in which one of Loki's sons causes him to realize that in murdering Baldr, he has played right into Odin's hands. Baldr is resurrected, fate is broken, and Loki and a handful of allies are on the run from Odin, Thor, and those who wish to set fate back on its proper track.

There was nothing truly out of the ordinary about the man nursing a tumbler of amber whiskey at the bar – that is, aside from the light scar that sealed his left eye shut.  But that was difficult to make out in the dim, yellow light that suffused the rest of the pub.  His hair, brushed back from his forehead and falling thick around his ears, was the same gray-gold as the ice cubes that softly clinked against each other as they melted into his drink, and his square-jawed and unshaven face was a complex network of experiences that lines and wrinkles testified to.   Like the scar, both were hard to make out under his broad-brimmed gray fedora.  The matching ratty overcoat didn’t help, either.  He hadn’t taken it off, but the damp and cold of the night outside was sneaking insidiously into the bar so it wasn’t so strange.  He sat hunched over the bar, his one good eye scanning the sparse Wednesday crowd with a razor’s focus.

Not that he needed to watch, or that looking would do him any good.  When the person he was waiting for arrived, he would _know_.  Still, he held that habits formed for a reason, and he’d be damned if he changed them now.  A trio of businessmen was enjoying a meal and drinks, a young pair of girls tittered away in a corner, and some bloody tourist was trying to disguise his disappointment by ordering another stout.  Otherwise, the place was dead as a dog by the road.

He considered livening it up a bit.  Wouldn’t take much, really. He could think of about ten things to do off the top of his head that would end in chaos and disaster for everyone but him. But then, halfway through a sip of his drink, he stiffened, straightened, then casually turned his back to the doors, facing the gleaming lines of colorful bottles that stood on shelves and hung from hooks on the wall.  Slowly, he put the tumbler down, elbows resting on the smudged wooden bar, and waited.  The dirty Rolex on his wrist had ticked its way through a full minute before the woman – yes, it was a woman, and a young one at that – had picked her way through the empty wooden chairs and tables and settled with energetic ease one barstool over.  He didn’t move or even look, as though his drink were far more interesting than she.  

“You’re early,” came her plaintive greeting from beside him.  “And started without me, I see.  To think, after all we’ve been through, you’d be here, drinking without me. _Really_. I’m hurt.”

“Not nearly hurt enough.”  There was gravel and humorless humor in his tone.  Power, too.  If this man raised his voice, he could turn every head in every pub on the street.  But for now it was low, and the reply drew shaky laughter from his companion.

“Charming!  Always the charmer, you are, ha ha ha.  You didn’t call me out here just so you could dredge up _that_ old grudge, did you?”

“Yes.”

A breathy sigh. “…of course you did.”

“Were you expecting anything else?”

“I had hoped you’d set this little meeting up because you missed me.”

Finally, he turned his head – just his head, the rest of him remained perfectly still – to look at her.  Eyes as blue as superheated flames stared out from under pouting knotted eyebrows.  They were set in a pale face framed with waves upon waves of copper hair that spilled out uncontrollably over the white cashmere sweater (that the pub light tinted yellowish) she wore over a maternity dress.  Blue and strappy, it stretched taut over her swelling belly but floated loose and airy around her knees.  She was beautiful, yes, but no amount of burgundy lipstick would ever fully disguise the hair-thin white scars that criscrossed her mouth.  His voice was tinged with barely perceptible humor as he answered her: “Like the plague.”

Her grin relaxed a little.  She propped her chin up on one hand, shifting around to find a more accommodating position on the hard wooden stool.  “You never change, do you, you old bastard.”

“Never.”  The assertion had the same finality of a two-ton safe door closing.  Then, he looked her up and down, gaze coming to rest on her stomach, and his words cut at the edges.  “But I’m not the only one. You look the same as ever.”

Her eyes narrowed, defiance sharpening her face into hard lines and tight angles that the dim light did nothing to soften.  It only cast her features into shadow.  “Didn’t see this coming, did you?”  One slim hand curled defensively – and protectively – around her abdomen.  “No one did.  Not me, not the Norns, not even _you_.”  Her laughter stretched her scars, twisting the skin around her delicate pretty mouth.  “But that’s not really news anymore, is it?”

A muscle in the man’s jaw twitched, but he did not move.  “You’ll have to humor an old man, then.”  Venom laced every syllable.  “Who’s the father?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”  She flashed him a cheeky grin, then reached towards his whiskey tumbler—then gave a cry as his hand shot out, fast as thought, slamming her wrist down into the bar hard enough to leave imprints from the rubber mats on her skin.

“Well, what do you know,” he said too casually, leaning in close so his low tone could be heard over her whimpers and the approach of the bartender and the titters of the few patrons who had turned to look, “it seems some things _have_ changed.”

“ _Let me go_ ,” she whined, “you can’t cause a scene here, you know that, I won’t take the drink, I swear—”

“Is there a problem?” Both their faces turned to look up at the bartender that loomed between them, hers frightened, his sullen.  Reluctantly, like a suction cup popping off a wall, the scarred man let go – with a surreptitious final twist that made her gasp and cradle her freed hand to her chest, rubbing it tenderly with the other.  Her shoulders rose and fell in short sharp jerks, eyes wary and cornered.

“You shouldn’t drink,” he said, then glanced up at the bartender from under his hat.  “Bad for the baby.”

The bartender looked from one to the other, eyes settling on the woman, silently questioning.  But when she nodded with a small, unnatural smile, he hesitated a moment longer, heaved a sigh, and turned back to washing pint glasses.  One by one, the other customers turned back to their drinks and conversation, leaving the pair free to talk once more.  The woman’s manner was noticeably more reserved; she’d lost ground and she knew it.  “I thought I had your word you’d share.  Every time, you said.  You’re breaking your promise.”

“You broke yours first.”  His one eye caught the yellow lamplight, and for a moment, it shone like steel.

She shrugged her shoulders, sprained wrist dropping to rest in her lap.  “Guilty.”

“As usual.”

“You know, we’ve done an awful lot of talking abut me.  But what about you?  Let’s talk about you for a while.  Like for instance why you wanted to meet in a dingy overpriced pub in York.  You can’t be planning to bring me back.  Not after all this time.”  She gave a mock-gasp, her mouth a hopeful little crimson “o”.  “You haven’t forgiven me, have you?”

The look on his face made it quite clear that he hadn’t.  The silence stretched on for a long, long moment, until she pulled a breath and spoke again to fill it.

“Not yet, then.”

“Never.”  The steel safe echoed itself.  “But I am not here to lock you away, not today.”  He took a long drink.  “It’s much too late for that.”

It’s about time you figured that out.  You could have saved yourself some time and me some pain by just, oh, maybe _not locking me up_ in the first place.  That didn’t get either of us anywhere, and all I got out of it was a faceful of snake spit.  But look on the bright side.  Your son’s alive.  The world marches on.  You’ve got a long, full life ahead of you with no bloody battle to cut it short.  That’s not so bad, is it?”

The curled fist on the bar, the one covered in a lattice of faint scars, was clenched so hard it was shaking.  If looks could kill, the woman would have been thoroughly lacerated five minutes ago.  “Don’t play coy with me, _trickster_.  You ruined everything and you know it.”

“I saved the world.  And your favorite son.”

“To save yourself.”  Disgust dripped from his tongue.

“Got that right.  Who wants to be the bad guy when bad guys always lose?”  She twisted to face him properly as her mouth twisted to leer at him, and her eyes were like chips of ice.  “You lost long before I broke out of your cave.  You lost the moment I decided I didn’t want to die – and figured out how to do it.  Fate’s off the rails, my friend, careening through country lanes and cornfields and barnyards and there’s jack shit you or anyone else can do to put it back.”  She gave a short laugh.  It wasn’t a nice one.  “It’s a shame, really.  You gave up so much, and look where it’s got you now – some faulty foresight.  Think you can ask for that eye back, or are you just screwed now?”

_Now._

His barstool hit the brown linoleum floor with a clatter.  The man’s hands were wrapped in fistfuls of her sweater and he had her shoved back against the bar before the tumbling stool had settled.  He looked into her face and saw voiceless terror, and felt her tremble and scrabble weakly at his hand and felt a surge of raw _satisfaction_.  Murder didn’t compare.  Sex wasn’t even close.  This was what he’d been waiting for.   _This_ was the point of this little venture: the dawning understanding on this woman’s face.  “Then tell me, silver-tongue,” he said, breathing hard and fast, inches from her button-nose, so close he could smell past her perfume to the smoky musk that was uniquely hers, _“what is there to keep me from killing you?”_

She coughed and clutched at his fingers and couldn’t answer.

But she didn’t have to.  The businessmen in their suits were pulling the old man back, prying his hands off while the barkeep dashed around the bar to catch the woman, wrapping his arms around her to shield and to give strength.  Their words were lost in the commotion – “Oi, you can’t do that ‘round here!” “Are you all right, miss?” “What the hell do you think you’re playing at!” and a dozen more meaningless, posturing shouts like it.  The twisting of his arms and shoulders was the only attention the man paid to his captors, shouldering them roughly with more strength than any man his age ought to possess.  He did not look at them.  He looked at her, and saw her master her fright with deep breaths.

“I told you.  I won,” she gasped out, supporting herself on the bartender.  “Don’t you see?  You won’t change, but the times do.  Without you.  You try to do things the old way but you _can’t_ , you just can’t and that’s what’s killing you, Odin.  That’s why you’ll die and I’ll live.”

 “Wrong,” he hissed, and it was as though it was only them, that the four other men didn’t even exist, it was just him and the woman staring at each other across a mead hall thatched with straw and gold and the yellow light flickered like flames on rows of round sooty shields that lined the walls.  “You’ll die all right.  I’ve got no more use for you.  Why should I keep you alive?  Now that the end isn’t coming, you have no more reason to exist than I.”

Her eyes went dark but not angry; shrouded, secretive under her lashes and tousled copper curls.  “Don’t I?” she whispered, and her good hand went back to her belly, and suddenly they were grounded again in incandescent bulbs and smudged furniture polish and spilt beer smell and disinfectants.  “I want the future.  I want to hear its music.  See its movies.  I want an iPad 4, and an iPad 9, and I want every other gadget that goes out of style two months later.  And I don’t want to die.  That’s reason enough for me.  Sure, I can’t cheat.  I can’t look ahead and know what’s going to happen, but I’ll get to see it myself eventually.  And I’m fine with that.”

_“Wrong again.”_

And suddenly the bartender was shrinking back, halfway through dialing the police, and thinking very seriously about running himself.  Because this madman, despite his arms pinned behind his back by three other men, had stopped struggling and drawn himself up and _together_ and somehow he seemed bigger and more solid and more real than anything else around him.  It was like looking at a splotch of color on a gray photograph.  When he spoke, the bartender shuddered, because the old man – was he so old, come to think of it? – had a voice that was shaking mountains.  “You’ll die first.  You will see nothing but the underside of the earth.  I’ll chase you until one of us is dead.  And if I die, you come with me.  I will find you.  And I   _will_ kill you.”

The room was silent, but for the _click click click_ of one brave soul’s mobile keys.  All eyes were fixed on the man and the woman, and their eyes on each other.

Then, the woman closed her eyes, averting her face.  “Is that why you wanted to meet after all this time?”

“There is nothing else I want from you.”

“Then I suppose there’s nothing to talk about, is there?”  Mumbling soothing assurances to the shell-shocked bartender that she was fine and could make her own way home, no, no hospital, just some rest, the woman topsily climbed to her feet and, plucking her purse from the surface of the bar, picked her way to the pub doors through the silence.  As she reached the doorframe, the man’s voice rang out once more.

“Loki!”

The woman paused, light clothing framed starkly by the night outside that the streetlamp couldn’t quite manage to illuminate, looking over her shoulder.

“Who _is_ the father?”

The scarred smile that answered was as sharp as needles and bright as sparks.  “Does it matter?”

“I suppose not,” Odin murmured low, glaring as the blue-clad figure slipped out into the dark like a patch of sky vanishing into night.  “Not anymore.”


End file.
